A report by the Associate Press today, December 11, 2011, brings to light the name of Khalifa Hiftar as the Commander of the New Libyan Army! The report states that he tried to
take over by force Tripoli’s Airport from Zintan rebels who liberated it from Gadhafi’s forces! How a former Libyan expatriate and U.S. citizen calling himself “colonel” – but who had no role in ousting Gadhafi- was appointed “Supreme Commander of the new Libyan army? How such a lout sitting in Benghazi during the fighting got the rank of “army General,” while battlefield tested top Libyan rebel commanders were bypassed? Clout!!!!!!!!!! U.S. clout! And he is probably groomed by the U.S. to become the new “strongman” of Libya!

We have to backtrack to the beginning of the Libyan Revolution to understand Hiftar’s arrival and un-merited meteoric rise in Libya. Khalifa Hiftar and Mahmoud Jibril, both… Read more

Unfortunately, what happens in the ground battles between Gadhafi forces and rebels is the background of the story. The main event is the stalling by the U.S. to any outside help for the rebel forces. And here we are from Obama sounding tough and calling Gadhafi’s attacks on rebel controlled cities as “unacceptable” 10 days ago, to the U.S. becoming now the “stumbling block” to any Western help for the Libyan opposition – even though France and Great Britain are ready to take on him.

What happened that changed the “previous” U.S. fervor to tackle Gadhafi, to the “present” U.S. stand which is nothing less than holding back its European allies from helping the Libya opposition to overthrow him? The answer is: The events in Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia!!!!! a) The U.S. Fleet in the Persian Gulf has its base in Bahrain. But the Bahrain king, Hamad Al Khalifa is a Sunni Muslim that rules over a 70% Bahrain citizenry that are Shites Muslims, and they have risen to demand reforms. But instead of reforms, the King declared a “state of emergency,” and asked the Saudi royal family for troops to save his throne! Now Bahrain is occupied by the Saudi army, and no doubt the U.S. has acquiesced to the occupation. b) The Saudi royal family has been pushing the U.S. to abandon the Libyan opposition hoping that the defeat will scare the Bahrainians and the Saudi citizens from rebelling against their autocratic rulers. Start up uprisings in Saudi Arabia against the monarchy have been brutally suppressed by King Abdullah, and now his army occupies Bahrain to save its king and warn other Arabs in the emirates to shut up!

The U.S. and Israel have since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981 supported, armed, and trained the armies of Arab kings, emirs and dictators in return for cheap oil, military bases for the U.S. forces, outlawing Islamic parties hostile to the U.S. and Israel, and allowing the U.S. air force to bomb anti-U.S. rebels in their territory. The currently embattled Yemeni president Saleh was seen on video giving permission to the U.S. General Patreus to bomb anti-Islamic insurgents in Yemen saying: “You [Patreus] bomb the rebels, but we would say it is our [Yemeni air force] bombs, not yours [U.S.] bombs!,” on quote! Under elected governments in Arab states, all the above U.S. privileges would probably cease to exist.

And that is why Barack Obama has now turned its back on the Libyan opposition, and he would rather allow Gadhafi to prevail. The reason? The popular uprising against despotic Arab regimes has gone far enough, and a win of the Libyan rebels will boost the morale of the other Arabs to mass against their own rulers! And that outcome is unacceptable to the U.S. That is why the U.S. is stalling now any action against Gadhafi. Gadhafi is -unofficially- “acceptable” now because the U.S. wants the Jordanians, the Saudis, the Bahrainians, the Yemenis, the Algerians, the Moroccans, and the United Arab Emirate Arabs to know that the U.S. prefers stability under the present rulers and the present status quo in the Arab world. In short, the U.S. focus now has turned into an effort to halt the massive anti-regimes tide in the Arab world to save its tattering allies.

The turn around of the U.S. foreign policy in Libya, therefore, seems to be a wider Middle East umbrella policy of “Save the Rulers!” Do anything to stop the tide against our Arab despots and autocrats! Bust the revolting Arab masses – if that is what it takes. And if that become a life-saver for Gadhafi too, so be it! Disposing the Libyan opposition is probably a small price to pay to turn the tide in the Gulf! After all, Iran and Hezbollah, the worst U.S. and Israeli enemies, are supporting the Libyan opposition which now seems like a liability to the U.S. – given the current events in the Gulf that have forced the U.S. to see the bigger Middle East picture. And if the U.S. is forced to save that big picture, it may treat the Libyan opposition as the sacrificial lambs. Nikos Retsos, retired professor